


To the Touch

by ungoodpirate



Series: so many ways to be close [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Date Night, First Date, M/M, Malec, Post Season 1, Supportive Izzy, certified malec trash, complete wish fullment, seriously a lot of kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 18:44:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6670417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ungoodpirate/pseuds/ungoodpirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alec says, “I’ve never done this before.”</p>
<p>“I know.” Magnus brushes the tip of his nose cross Alec’s. Alec hadn’t known there were so many ways to be close.</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>Three weeks after Jace goes missing, Alec takes up Magnus on that drink date. Drinks happen, and so does a lot of kissing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the Touch

Three weeks after Jace goes missing, Alec takes up Magnus on that drink date. 

Alec tells Izzy in the tucked away privacy of her bedroom, not able to curtail the grin that finds it way on his face as he admits to her where he’ll be slipping away to for the evening. 

Izzy smiles back, but she had always been an easier smiler than him. 

“Where are you going?” she asks. 

Alec lists of the name of an establishment Magnus had chosen. ‘An establishment’ is what Magnus had called it, in that particular, lyrical way of his. It sounds stilted in Alec’s mouth.

“Oh, that’s a fancy place.”

“Is it?” Something nervous and unfamiliar twist in Alec’s gut. 

Hand on her hip, Izzy asks what he’s planning on wearing. 

Alec looks down at himself. His wardrobe consists of normal clothes and workout clothes. Right now he’s wearing a normal outfit, jeans and a t-shirt. 

“This?” he says. 

Izzy must now recall who she’s talking to, for her advice winds down to, “Put on a button down. Something with a collar.” 

As he’s thinking this over, Izzy comes close, wraps her arms around his middle in a hug. He slants one arm over her shoulders to squeeze her back. 

“I’m really so happy for you, big brother,” she says into his chest, voice pitched a little higher than normal. 

Alec squeezes a little tighter. 

Everything lately had been tainted by the absence of Jace, his parabatai, both of theirs brother. Valentine was off planning and preparing what would surely be some sort of onslaught. The Clave and the Institute were scrambling to prepare, but they’d fallen into a lull, waiting for the first strike. 

Izzy steps back, cups his cheek, says, “You deserve this,” she says. “Have a good time for all of us.” She goes up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek and then thumbs off the lipstick stain.

…

They meet on the sidewalk outside the establishment. Alec had been waiting for roughly twenty minutes. So nervous to be late, he was so punctual he was early. Magnus arrived precisely on time. 

Alec’s not sure if Magnus portaled himself there or what. He just appeared at the end of the block, and Alec couldn’t unlock his gaze from him as he approached. Did Magnus light up the night, or was that just the filter through which Alec was seeing him?

“Hello, Alexander,” Magnus says when he gets close, chin tilted upward.

“Hey,” Alec says on a breath. And that’s it: his lungs have stopped working. His own muscles defy him, as he can feel his face shift. He’s smiling in that way it’s so big it’s almost painful. He should say something more, but he can’t control his body, let alone his words. 

“Shall we go in?” Magnus asks. 

“Yeah.”

Thankfully, Magnus doesn’t appear put off by Alec’s sudden lack of the ability to speak sentences longer than one word. But Magnus knows Alec, knows what he’s getting. 

That uncomfortable feeling from earlier, the one centered in his gut, returns. Is this… nerves? Not going into battle nerves. Or, uh-oh, Mom is mad nerves. Those he was familiar with, could handle, could channel. This was something new. 

Inside, Magnus has a table with a reserved sign on it. A waiter attends to them immediately, asking what they would like to drink. Alec shrugs. He doesn’t really drink casually. He doesn’t know what he likes. Magnus orders for him. Alec doesn’t mind. Tonight is more about seeing Magnus than the actual drinks. 

Once the waiters gone, Alec’s mind and mouth finally meet again. “You look good,” he says. Magnus is wearing of one his silky shirts that dips down low over his chest and his eyes are lined in a way that makes them that more intense. The streaks in his hair are blue today. 

“Well, thank you, Alexander. You’re looking handsome too, as usual.” 

Alec wishes his drink was here already, so he had something to do with his hands and mouth. This date had put off so many times, it now carries such a great weight. 

“I’m sorry,” Alec finds himself saying. “I’m not good that… this.”

“I’m just glad we’re here,” Magnus says. He leans forward, like ready to whisper a secret. “And don’t worry. This isn’t like a normal first date. You don’t have to impress me. I’m already impressed.” 

Alec laughs. The lights in this establishment are lowered, ambient, so maybe his blush doesn’t show.

The drinks are delivered. Alec takes his first sip a little too aggressively and ends up coughing. 

Magnus, blessedly, ignores it. And so their date begins. 

...

Alec isn’t good at talking. Magnus, however, is brilliant at it. From the moment Alec had meet, he saw that Magnus was one of those people who filled the room with his presence. Izzy and Jace had qualities of that, both confident in a way that demanded attention. Magnus was like that, but multiplied, and yet Magnus wants to spend his attention on Alec. 

Some time during Magnus filling Alec in on the ongoings of the last few weeks -- a vampire from Brussels trying to trade antiquities, the business at Pandemonium, all light-hearted things -- Alec had placed his arm on the table. And sometime after he placed his arm on the table, Magnus began casually -- perhaps even absent-mindedly -- trailing his fingers up and down the back of Alec’s hand. It’s distracting in the best way, the hairs on Alec’s arms standing up as the tips of Magnus’ fingers tickle-tease up and back so lightly as Magnus keeps talking. 

Alec shares some too: about the well-being of himself, of Izzy, of Lydia, of Clary. But he can only go so far before they such a conversation before it becomes a downer. 

Plus, Alec has a hard enough time stringing words together in front of Magnus most of the time, and now he’s even more distracted with those fingers. 

He flips his hand over, palm up, and Magnus doesn’t hesitate for a second, fingers now trailing over the center of Alec’s palm and the inside of his wrist. Alec shivers, completely, in a way that has nothing to do with the temperature. Neither of them are talking now. They’re too busy enjoying the sensation of touch.

Alec braves himself up for when Magnus’ fingers reach again the middle of his palm, and curls his fingers up around Magnus’, making it so their holding hands on the table top.

Their eyes meet. “Always full of surprises,” Magnus says. His expression soften in that way Alec had seen a few times, in a way that makes Magnus, the 400 year old High Warlock of Brooklyn look impossibly vulnerable. 

“I was surprised you called me today,” he says. “But I’m glad.” 

“Me too,” Alec says. “I mean… I’m glad too. I’m not surprised I called you. I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”

“Why today?”

Alec releases a sigh he feels like he’s been holding in for days. “Magnus, I just… Everything’s a mess right now. At the Institute we’re all just waiting for it to rain down. I got tired of waiting on bad things to happen.” 

It’s not exactly a romantic answer, but Magnus nods in understanding. 

“A war’s coming,” he says. “With Valentine back, I’m sure of that… I’ve lived through a lot of wars, magic and mundane. There’s no glory in it. Certainly there are things worth fighting for, but there’s no glory.”

They had shared two drinks each and several hours together, and Magnus suggests that they take their further conversation somewhere more private (despite the fact no one has sat at the tables near them, perhaps under the same influence of his reserved sign, and we’re unlikely to be eavesdropping). Alec agrees. 

Magnus’ loft isn’t far and the night is mild, so they walk. It’s so absurdly normal, non-magic, mundane. Magnus just walking the streets of New York, and Alec with him, no demons to fight, no werewolves to heal, no Alec getting engaged to someone else hanging over them. Just them, untainted by anything else, for a moment. 

…

“Home, sweet home,” Magnus says once they’re back at his loft, collapsing with a flare onto his couch. Alec hovers just inside the doorway until Magnus pats the open spot next to him, beckoning. 

As soon as Alec joins him, Magnus turns on his hip to face Alec. 

“It’s been a good night,” Magnus whispers, and Alec wonders if he’s speaking so low so that Alec has lean in closer. But Alec doesn’t been to be tempted for that. 

“Yeah,” he says, back to one word sentences. He doesn’t need words for what he does next. 

His eyes drop to Magnus’ lips, the signal clear, and he leans forward. Magnus meets him halfway. 

They hadn’t kissed since the wedding. Now that Alec’s kissing Magnus again, it’s clear that ‘since the wedding’ has been way too long.

Alec holds himself in place with one arm, and with the other clutches at the waist of Magnus’ shirt. It’s as silky to the touch as it looked. 

Magnus’ hand comes up to clutch at the hair at the back Alec’s head as he pressed into the kiss,, and oh… What a sensation, an accent, that he hadn’t realized he’d enjoy. 

After a little while… a long while? After a some while... Magnus pulls back. Alec doesn’t want this to end, but before he can voice protest, Magnus has moved, cat-like, to straddle Alec on the couch, and they’re kissing again, Magnus holding Alec’s face between his hands. 

It was another thing Alec hadn’t realized he would like, to have his face held like that, so gently. He was a soldier; he wasn’t used to…

He ran his hands up and down Magnus’ back, feeling the shift of his shoulder blades and muscles. Exploring what he had never been able to explore before. 

After another some while, their mouths part again, but Magnus doesn’t go far, tilting his forehead against Alec’s, petting along his cheek, his jaw. Alec doesn’t open his eyes. He’s not sure he could even focus enough to see anything if he did, but he’s preferring concentrating on these other sensations. He can feel Magnus breathing in a haggard pace with him.

He’s turned on, sure, but there’s a -- probably deliberate -- gap between his and Magnus’ hips. Alec wants to do so many things, try so many things, but he’s in no rush, and Magnus doesn’t seem to be rushing him. 

Still, Alec says, “I’ve never done this before.”

“I know.” Magnus brushes the tip of his nose cross Alec’s. Alec hadn’t known there were so many ways to be close. 

Magnus shifts a bit back. Alec feels a feather-light pressed to the corner of his mouth, then over one of his closed eyelids, and then over the other. Another quick kiss was pressed to Alec’s bottom lip, but before he could reciprocate, the lips moved over to his jaw, one two, then under his ear, then on his neck where he knew was the center of his deflect rune. 

Magnus shifts back a little farther. 

Not thinking about it, Alec’s hands drop onto Magnus’ thighs. If he had been thinking about it, he probably wouldn’t have been bold enough. Now that they’re there, he’s not eager to move them. 

Alec finally opens his eyes from a dream to another dream. Magnus looking at him with as much wonderment as Alec felt in his thundering chest. 

With care, Magnus moves himself so he is again seated beside Alec, though barely centimeters separate them. 

“What’re you doing tomorrow?” Magnus asks, again, quiet, a whisper. They’re so close they don’t need anything louder. 

“Meeting with the vampires,” Alec says. “They kind of hate us because of the Camille thing, but we have to try some diplomatic relations.” 

“And after that?”

“I’m supposed to be helping train Clary in combat.” 

“And after that?”

“I -- I don’t know.” 

One of Magnus’ hands has settled on his knee. He’s distracted. 

“Well, Alexander, I have an idea…”

“Yeah?”

“You come and see me again. We have dinner with those drinks, and see where things go.”

“Sounds -- sounds good.” 

“Good.” Magnus tilts his head. “Now it’s getting late and I think it would be irresponsible of me to keep you from getting a good night’s rest before your very important diplomatic relations.”

“I don’t think I’d mind,” Alec says. 

“Now look who’s being coy,” Magnus replies. 

Alec really doesn’t want this night to end, but Magnus is right, and responsibility was bred into his very spine. His legs are a bit shaky under him as he stands, but he does it. 

Magnus walks him to the door. They face each other. 

“I --,” Alec starts. “I’m really --”

“I know,” Magnus says gently, but Alec wants to finish, wants to get all the words out for once. 

“I’m really happy right now,” he manages to say quick. “I’m happy, and… it’s because of you.”

Magnus braces his hands on Alec’s chest, says, “You make me happy too,” and comes in for a final, goodnight kiss.

…

Alec doesn’t recall the walk back to the Institute, his mind in the realm of elsewhere -- replays and speculation.

Izzy finds him right away when he’s back, and he doesn’t care to know how. 

“How did it go?” she asks, leaning in his doorway. 

“It was --,” but he couldn’t think of any way to sum it up.

“That good, huh?” 

“Exactly.” 

As he lay in his bed that night, in a state between wake and sleep, Alec finds himself… anticipating. Since Jace had disappeared, since Valentine got the Mortal Cup, the future seemed to only hold pending terror. But now the future was widen up with possibility. He has a date with Magnus tomorrow, and probably another after that, and after that, and after that...


End file.
